Consider United an innovator in the shameless cash-grab that ticket change fees have become. In 2013, the airline became the first to make those people pay dearly for changing their travel plans, raising its ticket change cost from $150 -- already nothing to sneeze at -- to $200. (For some international flights, that figure can rise to $300.) That’s now the industry standard, earning American commercial airlines a collective total of $3 billion in flight change fees between June of 2014 and 2015. As the Washington Post reports, a small backlash has been brewing. Since change fees can sometimes be pricier than simply buying a new ticket, no-shows have become more common. The practice not only saves the customer money, it also prevents the airline from reselling their seat. The Post piece includes the awesome story of a woman named Laura Attwood who, instead of paying the change fees for an earlier flight, cashed in miles for the ticket she needed -- then purposely made sure the airline couldn’t get paid twice for her seat. “In fact, I checked in and picked my seat on the flight I wasn’t going to make, and confirmed it,” Attwood told the Post. “That way, they couldn’t resell my seat. I was so mad that I had to pay a change fee.” Change fees are just second in a list of ten: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-po...se-calculated-misery-make-flying-increasingly Fly Amtrak!
Amtrak is a government subsidized death trap. However, I do applaud innovative efforts by consumers at hitting back at industries with such unfair business practices.
